SPRING PRACTICE PERIOD: Stories from the Lotus Sutra

Dogen-Zenji so cherished the Lotus Sutra that he actually carved a selection of it into his door. This, the core text of not only Zen but the whole of Mahayana Buddhism, has never lost its appeal among practitioners of the Way. Join us for our SPRING PRACTICE PERIOD: Stories From the Lotus Sutra led by Sensei Joshin Byrnes, Sensei Genzan Quennell

John Dunne: 07-19-2013: Revealing Nagarjuna (Part 4)

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Series Description: The Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (ca. 150 C.E.) famously articulated the notion of emptiness or sunyata as a tool for understanding ultimate reality. Based on selected primary texts such as his Wisdom, this seminar explores Nagarjuna’s thought and its powerful effect on subsequent Buddhist philosophy. Inquiring into the key concept of sunyata, we will see how it relates to interdependence and compassion, and we will ask how it is possible to experience sunyata in meditative practice.

Episode Description: In the Friday evening session, John begins by addressing a number of questions. He then returns to the concept of “svabhava,” meaning “intrinsic identity” or “own nature,” which he touched upon briefly in the previous session. Svabhava is critical to Abhidharma philosophy, which is Nagarjuna’s prime target in his Wisdom. Abhidharma philosophy, which is itself quite profound, acknowledges the inability to find any intrinsically existent “self” in the Buddhist map of body and mind. This sense of self, Abhidharma agrees, is simply a series of moments in a “causal stream” of “fizzing stuff,” stuff like molecules, neurons, and light. However, the Abhidharma claims that this very stuff is actually real. It claims that this stuff, these “dharmas” that make everything up, have svabhava, or intrinsic identity. Nagarjuna targets this subtler level of reification. The Abhidharma posits the svabhava of dharmas in part due to causality. It claims that causality exists, that causes beget effects, and that furthermore, fundamentally real causes beget fundamentally real effects. That is, causes with svabhava beget effects with svabhava. John spends the remainder of the session explaining Nagarjuna’s counterarguments to this position in a lively back-and-forth with the program participants.